Through five chapters, the feminist elements in Their Eyes are readily apparent. For
example, the final sentence of chapter three: “Janie’s first dream was dead, so
she became a woman.” (Hurston 24) I can appreciate this and other feminist
elements, but I’m concerned it may end up being taken too far. This often
occurs outside of literature, and it creates more problems than it solves.
To be clear, I have
nothing against feminism and I’m glad to have been born into a society that
provides mostly equal opportunities for both genders. But, sometimes modern feminists
take up a cause that’s more detrimental than beneficial in my opinion. For an extreme
example, and I’m about to delve into a topic that may offend some, but consider
the popularly quoted “1 in 4 women will be raped before graduating college”
statistic. Here’s an ABC
News story discussing it. While
acknowledging that I am not a woman and couldn’t possibly understand the threat
of rape the same way, and that there are countless unreported rapes not figured
into those statistics, I find it irresponsible and potentially dangerous for
feminists to promote awareness of those sorts of rape statistics.
Don’t think I’m a rape apologist—I have nothing but the
utmost contempt for rapists. However, I find the statistic damaging because it’s not true. Included in that
statistic are victims of “drunk sex.” Essentially, if a woman goes to a party
and gets drunk and has sex with a man, and wakes up the next morning regretting
it, she was, by law, raped. Of course, this introduces an incredibly unfair
double standard, which is ironic considering that sort of thing is supposed to
be what feminism is against. Certainly, no court will take a man’s claims
seriously if he tries to accuse a woman of rape in the same circumstances,
despite the fact that drunk men, well, let’s just say they can end up in some
pretty awful predicaments in the morning as well.
While there can be circumstances in which drunk sex can
border on rape, to consider every single instance a rape is wrong, in my
opinion. Though there are plenty of unreported rapes understating the
statistic, I think there are a lot more that were reported wrongly. Feminists
sponsor polls that create these statistics, and I’ve personally seen how the
polls trick women into saying they’ve been raped. For example, there will be a
question asking “have you ever had sex while drunk” and every woman who checks “yes”
gets added into a big bucket of people who answered affirmatively to other
similar questions. Then, the total becomes the rape statistic, despite the fact
that an unknown number of those included answered “no” to more direct questions
like “have you been a victim of sexual assault.”
So, if rape statistics are overstated, the reason I don’t
think feminists should continue misleading poll respondents (in my opinion) is
obvious: it promotes unease and fear, puts a barrier between men and women that
doesn’t belong. Women are conditioned to fear men and assume they’re all sexual
predators, and that doesn’t create healthy relationships, whether romantic or
platonic. There are a lot of repercussions of this attitude that are hard to
directly trace to it, and perhaps that’s why it still happens, but I genuinely
feel society would be better off if feminists eased up in this case. The
feminist movement was originally about creating equality, yet modern feminists
that attempt to promote this negative attitude toward men only divide us
further. Besides, discussing how prevalent something is is a good way to make it so. Quite literally, I believe these feminist-sponsored rape statistics actually encourage rape more than inhibit it. That's why I take this issue so seriously--I truly believe some feminist movements actually hurt their own cause, and it pains me to see that.
Anyways, back to Their
Eyes. As I said, I can appreciate the feminist elements in it. But, there
has already been one instance in which it was taken perhaps a bit too far. The
event I’m referring to is Janie’s leaving with Joe without divorcing her
husband. He was not an ideal husband, probably, but he did provide for Janie.
Feminists hate the marginalization of women, yet Logan was left high and dry
without a second thought. Perhaps he resurfaces later in the story, but thus
far no mention has been made of him since Janie left him. If their roles were
reversed, I have a feeling feminists would bash the novel for marginalizing the
poor married woman who was dumped at a moment’s notice, and condemn the male version of Janie for being the scum of the earth. Sadly, I'm not sure how hyperbolic that is, even though it was meant to be.
In this case, though, there may be practical reasons why the event
played out how it did. It may not have been realistic for a black woman to
pursue a divorce from a white man, and perhaps she would have been punished for
even mentioning it. Similarly, she may not have had any choice but to run off
while Logan was gone. If she had tried to tell him before she left, it’s
doubtful he would have just said “oh, okay, see ya!” In that sense, her
infidelity is a message of empowerment, as Janie took her life into her own
hands rather than settling for the hand dealt her. So, this may not be a case
of feminism being pushed too far—but it is enough to keep me alert. I will be
on the lookout for more double standards throughout the novel, as well as the positive feminism elements.
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